Robbie Hooke concepts
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I haven’t used tumblr much in years, but I made a new blog to showcase my craft. I really love making books! I’ve made a few journals and sketchbooks over the past few months as gifts for friends, and I plan to continue making more. I hope to sell them one day, but I am both too busy with my professional degree and I also want to get to a higher skill level before committing to that. Please look forward to more bookbinding!
This one was my first case binding - it’s a rounded spine quarter-bound journal. I use it to take notes in my classes c:
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Bathysaurus mollis
- Práctica con trazos simples.
Es poco va’ikorocho pero quienes somos para criticar 😮💨😩
IG personal -> maylen.zaracho
(uso dos firmas depende de cual me de ganas de usar JDSAJ, uno que dice MeyMey y esta que es más como firma común)
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love love love how you can see the slight indents of fingers in the fur of the puppets in Fantastic Mr Fox. You can see similar things in a lot of stop motion films, but it’s especially apparent when the puppets have fur. That’s human art, baby! Beautiful, no notes
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Newest painting🎨🌄
Hopefully, if I paint enough sunny scenes the snow around me will melt faster and I get my forest and lake back🥲
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OPAL - Art Biography
hello. this is my fourth or fifth time attempting tumblr. i’ve been lurking around here since probably 2012 or 13.
recently, i finally deactivated my twitter account [after years of inactivity, mind you]. i remember having very fond experiences of spending hours scrolling fanart for all my hyperfixations. so, i want to give tumblr a try again, since i do still see a lot of what appears to be genuine art and creativity from people here, as opposed to AI-generated junk.
i’m putting this post up first, as a sort of proof of work, should i ever decide to post my own art here. i’ll detail some of my process, my ideals, and my journey as an artist as a sort of mini-bio. now that AI generation is becoming so undiscernable, i find the most damning evidence for authenticity is history. you can follow along with my usual art hosting site, deviantart, where i’ve had an account for more than a decade. every art piece will also have its origin attached via embed.
2015
2015 is the beginning of my public art journey. during this time i was still in grade school. i knew at that time that i was still woefully amateur compared to other artists that i admired on the site. as you can see, i was going by a different username back then, the adequately-juvenile-sounding TheCoolestEver. (i’m still kind of surprised that i was the first one to ever try using that name.)
originally, i posted a lot of very simple MS paint art using things like my little pony bases on improperly-cropped stark white canvases. most of that is gone now, though, due to its quality being so poor that it frankly had no benefit to remaining on my portfolio, even as a reference for my improvements later on.
during this period, i was experimenting heavily with shading, body style, form, and made the worst background choices you’ve probably ever seen, because i was excited by so many of the digital tools at my disposal that i often couldn’t hold back from using as much as i could. you could say i lacked nuance in my work.
perfect example of my… frankly garish backgrounds. i was also frequently using nothing but the preset palette in my program of choice, ArtStudio.
much of my work from 2016 i don’t have much notable to say about that didn’t apply to 2015, though a lot of it was either directly influenced by or referencing other artists i looked up to at the time, and their characters.
the most noteworthy piece from that year was of Howlite, who remains my eldest gemsona still active. (she will change a lot over time.)
2017
this is when i’d say i truly started developing my art’s identity. in the preceding two years, i had been experimenting wildly with many different techniques and visual styles, and while i have always been of the opinion that i’m not and should not be held down any any notion that i must stay within a certain set of tools or parameters to determine what i “can” make, i really started narrowing down what i wanted out of what i made.
i had matured a little bit, and realized how… well, for lack of a better word, cringy my old username sounded, and had really started taking an interest in developing a “brand”, so to speak- so i switched to the username GLiTCH-R. at that time, i wanted to paint myself as appropriately nerdy, tech-y and futuristic (though i only knew slightly more about computers than my classmates, and was still regularly stumped by the simplest of issues- the difference between me and them was that i knew what task manager was).
this is the first time i would develop characters and concepts that would stay with me well into the present day, such as this character, Lily Thatcher, who still remains one of my most heavily-developed and cherished characters, in a world i still build with the eventual hope of releasing a finished story to the public.
this is also the first time i would go “pro”. i began offering commissions and adopts (for real money! wow!), mostly for designs centered around the Steven Universe fandom. as we’ll cover, steven universe fanart and commissions would come to define the majority of my public work and influence my style and development for years.
2018
Pink Diamond the Rebel by 0-P-A-L on DeviantArt
2018 remains one of my most productive years, in terms of raw output. for several years during my history, i was averaging around 190-220 published pieces a year- that’s a piece about every other day. this is one of those years.
still being very young, i had little else i was required to devote my time to besides school and extra-curricular activities, of which there were few. even then, the majority of my time in school and out of school was spent drawing. a great deal of my work this year was also comprised entirely of paid pieces- mostly custom designs, and of those, all gem designs. this was around the height of the steven universe fandom fever, and gemsonas were bread-and-butter. i wasn’t yet old enough to get a “real” job, but was earning a great deal by selling my artwork. multiples more than my peers might have by babysitting or walking dogs.
i was truly excited by this prospect- overjoyed by the opportunity to have my work be truly appreciated and reciprocated for in a tangible way by other people, especially for my age. i was fuelled by an endless drive to provide for the community, and every happy customer only made me more eager to move on to the next commission. whether i was motivated by the percieved value as compensation for a poor home life, is for psychiatric experts to determine.
here’s howlite again- she was completely redesigned from being a brawler to being a scientist, though her weapon became gauntlets as an omage to her original form.
despite my obvious intermediacy (perhaps even mediocrity by some standards), my design language and style taste is starting to solidify here, and there are designs i made from this period i still approve of to this day.
2019
in 2019 my public work would branch out a lot more towards other interests, though steven universe remained dominant. i would spend a lot more of my total volume of work designing and uploading personal characters, though still completed a large volume of customs. at this point, the actual show Steven Universe was secondary to the act of designing and appreciating gemsonas, for me. i was enamored with the community’s creativity and was constantly taking inspiration from popular gemsona designers of the time.
Pokemon and Good Omens would become intense hyperfixations for me this year. ironically, steven universe, despite still being what the majority of my work centered on, was mostly background noise, a comforting home base that was familiar to return to after a trip of frenzied mania through another interest.
2020
2020 is a very interesting one for me, as i’m sure many can also attest to. from the beginning i was violently gripped by an interest which would follow me for years into my fresh adulthood: Metal Gear Solid.
i would begin spending the majority of my time in online social circles this year (a common experience for many, i’m sure). i had always spent a portion of my artwork dedicated to advancing my skills and shallenging myself, and the above is a perfect example. while i always pined for recreating realism, this had been one of my most shining attempts thus far. obviously it has a lot of issues, but considering the “cartoonish” look of the rest of my work, it really stands out.
it’s worth noting (and i’m sure it will surprise you if you look at the gallery itself) that, compared to the year prior, my upload count was nearly halfed, and a majority of this years work was uploaded in the first half of the year, with the latter half being fairly absent of new works. to give you an idea, 80 works were uploaded in january - july, but only 37 works were uploaded in the remaining 5 months of the year.
this is because a deeply traumatic event toward the end of the summer season (NA) incinerated my drive to continue working. this event would completely redefine my life and identity after this point, and thus, naturally, my art as well. for this reason, i transitioned into the username i use now: OPAL (or variants thereof containing dashes or underscores.)
2021
oh hey, here’s howlite again! her appearance has changed slightly, in this update of her design, after the previous 3 years of staying the same. it won’t last for long, though, as i was soon unhappy with it.
in 2021, i try to bounce back. at this point i’m in trade school, and have an official part time job, but as i’m still spending about the same amount of time occupied as i was in high school, my output remains consistent. i’ve entered my first long-term committed relationship, and met online friends that i stay connected with into the present.
i took on more commissions this year, as compared with last year, where i was trying to do more personal work. i began to realize, mildly, that i was taking commissions and making adopts to fulfill a short-term loop of satisfaction with creation, while neglecting a more long-term-oriented workflow. this became important to me, as i began wondering about a “bigger picture” for what kind of impact my artwork could have on a larger audience. i had always daydreamed idly about my characters one day being front-and-center in some kind of bombastic and famous work, but how could i truly reach such a goal?
though my stylistic quality remained steady, the actual content of my design work varied in quality, as i experimented more heavily with broader genres of fashion. this lead to both: creations where i have no idea what i was thinking, years later, and designs that are still some of my favorites.
the latter half of 2021 would contain a silent struggle for me, as my living situation and home life would drastically decrease in quality. somehow, i worked through it with even more dedication, in contrast with the previous year.
2022
in 2022, for the now-legally-adult OPAL, making money is a much bigger concern. for that reason, i keep trucking on adopts and commissions. i’m still not able to dedicate that time i long for to the personal projects i believe will truly make me memorable. but, that doesn’t mean i don’t get some impressive things done anyway.
creating becomes a bit less exciting and a bit more rote for me in this time. knowing the obligation is there, and having the risk of feast-or-famine inherent in freelance work truly become a threat to my living situation drains a lot of my energy and increases my stress levels, both factors which sap my creative drive. for that reason, in the time i do get to spend creating truly for myself, i go further in experimentation to regain that fresh excitement.
at this point AI generation is starting to become more popular, and NFT theft is rampant. i struggle frequently with bitterness over both these issues, but ultimately feel content knowing that most of the crypto hype is hollow, and i’m not actually missing out on anything. additionally, i struggle with the loss of my most serious relationship to that point.
in October of that year, my living situation drastically improves, and i take a deep exhale. with much less stress burdening my shoulders, i flourish again. the creative drive returns.
at this point, i think i’ve reached my peak. i feel fully confident, capable, and like an expert in my field- like i’ve mastered the fundamentals. of course, looking back, i see how much room there still was for me to grow.
at the very climax of this year, i’ll complete what i believe at that time to be one of my most impressive and technical pieces to date. one can immediately notice that it’s Genshin Impact fanart, a game which i became highly interested in during the latter half of the year. this interest will follow me in greater and lesser waves for years to come.
2023
in spring of this year, i take up my first full-time job- and promptly get laid off about two months after, lol, lmao, rofl even. for that reason i can’t fully blame it for the drastic decrease in quantity this year, even though it did contribute somewhat. though, in contrast, i start to focus much more on quality, which also may be a contributing factor. (not that i didn’t care for quality before- but my standards have raised.) from this point on, i’m still fairly confident in the quality of almost every single piece, even as i’ve advanced further.
a big part of the reason my publishing so precipitously drops off this year, is not because i’ve drawn less, but only shifted where my drawings go. since 2017, in the background, i’ve been developing and curating my Toyhou.se. in 2023, i focus much more on my own characters, and push their work to my toyhouse, rather than my deviantart.
i can’t explain my exact methodology for this, except for the fact that perhaps i simply didn’t feel confident enough that frequent, one-off character renders with no shading or backdrop were noteworthy or important enough to publish. i thought of it as though it might be “flooding” my profile. i’ve more or less held on to this philosophy into the present day, for better or worse, though i do currently(2026) make more of an effort to post my personal pieces to deviantart, as well.
speaking of personal pieces-
hey look! it’s Lily Thatcher again.
i started truly dedicating myself to beginning work on a cohesive world and plot for my eldest characters.
i return to trade school in this time, and also finish my first complete animation (which teaches me that i mostly hate animating, unfortunately). i also finally break into an oft-envied skill i follow, 3D modeling.
2024
this year, i got really into highly-detailed pieces. my official publish count also nearly halved again, due to trade school finals, getting my second full-time job (ever, not at once, thankfully), moving out to live on my own for the first time, and continuing even more work on my personal projects. between stress and learning how to live on my own, i really lacked in time or energy to work on new things- despite this, i also distracted myself the most by working on intensive projects. so i would go through weekly cycles of getting heavily invested in a single piece or project for a few days, then take another several days off without drawing or rendering at all.
i made a lot of work i’m still extremely proud of in this time, a lot of work that pushed my skills to their breaking point and gave me “growing pains”, so to speak- challenges so intense that i would instantly reap the qualitative benefit of attempting them in my future work.
despite this, my actual writing for my projects still greatly lagged; writing has always been a subject with which i have had a deeply complicated and strained relationship. i tend to enjoy it in the fits and spurts in which i attempt it, but never have the proper inspiration or direction to continue writing past the initial excitement for a loose idea. the pieces never seem to fall neatly into a cohesive whole- the transition periods between important scenes leave gaps that feel like an endless void unable to be filled. eventually, it all stops to a grinding halt, so extreme that even trying to think of the next few words becomes agonizing.
i had never defeated this roadblock. so, in my cowardice, i kept my attention mostly on character design, avoiding that most difficult work. though the design work i did was fantastic.
in the latter half of the year, i was full of optimism, and believed i was finally on my best foot to start a new life.
oh, boy.
2025
i don’t have to tell you that 2025 was a waking nightmare.
i felt it as strongly as anyone else could have. blessedly, i experienced no physical danger, but the mental agony weighed on me intensely. as it so often does, art became my outlet and escape from the crushing burden of reality- not only for the world, but in the microcosm of my living situation, as well.
again, i spent a lot of time challenging myself to reach farther and go bolder with my projects. i found purpose beyond the pain by dedicating myself to my craft.
in this year i made the most concerted efforts to truly write and develope world and narrative that i’ve ever made. it remains a massive struggle, one that i may never fully or even partly conquer, but part of the art is the doing and the trying, and not just the finishing.
this year, i would revisit a series that had been dear to me since teenagehood- Uncharted. i don’t know what about it had appealed to me as a 9-year-old who was mostly interested only in minecraft or my little pony, but when i asked my grandad to buy Uncharted 3 for me, it would prove to be quite impactful. i would play and replay the story a number of times throughout my youth, and promised myself to go through Uncharted 4 when i had the time/means to do so. this year, i stopped putting it off. it was a beautiful and comforting distraction from the horrors around me.
then again, toward the latter end of the year, another even more impactful release, near and dear to my childhood heart, would rescue me.
i have always been a TRON fan- ever since i can remember. some of my first memories are of watching the original movie with my parents. i was among those first in the theaters, bouncing on my father’s lap during the opening night of TRON: Legacy. no matter what happened, i was going to show up for this.
the origins of TRON hearken back to a time where “AI” was but a fantasy; the idle fascination of science fiction writers. Later, Data captured audience fascination with the concept of a robot learning and yearning for what it means to be human. Zane would accept his artificial nature, while embracing and donning personhood regardless. many characters would follow suit with this curious and compassionate lense under which one could view a machine as a being that deserves the respect that sentience ought afford.
in a modern world where the ramifications of AI mean not compassion, but cruely; Not humanity, but desecration; Not benefit, but poisoning- Returning to that time of optimism for the advancement of technology was healing for my soul. Ares journey to reject the shackles of violent and oppressive expectations his creator placed on him, and fight for liberation, mirrored my own struggles.
(if Ares were to see what we were doing to art, he’d probably call it a disgrace for rejecting what makes us special in the first place, and he’d probably pick up a pencil himself.)
2025, like 2020, was one of the worst years of my life. but i carried the burning passion my inspirations gave me deep inside my heart, making it fuel every arduous step forward and keep me going. (additionally, and most excitingly, it gave me a new idea and new motivation to work on a big project.)
2026?
it’s a brisk and icy evening on 2.22.26 as i write this. it’s difficult to say what the future holds. so far, there have been ups and downs, more intense struggles, but also greatness and relief. it looks like we’re far from free of what looks to be many more years of suffering. but a lot of bad things i was sure would happen, have been prevented, and a lot of good things i didn’t believe in, happened as well.
the advancement of AI makes it more and more of a struggle for me to become excited or inspired by creation, with the ever-looming threat of neither being sure my own work won’t be heartlessly stolen, or whether someone else’s work is genuine. those young dreams i once had of turning the entertainment industry upside down with a 100% passion-led project putting artists first, look even less like a dream and more like a pure impossibility at this point.
yet, i persist.
why?
because i must.
since i remember being aware of my own existence, the act of creation has been my purpose to be. if i were to give it up, i would give up what gives my life meaning. so, i continue to create. and i hope you do, too.
my journey is also your journey. because art is the act of connection between humans across time, space, language and race.
i am going to keep doing my best and creating, because hard work on things for no other reason than doing them is what makes people who they are.
if you come here after you see an artwork i post, i hope you can sense my heart and my genuine-ness through the screen, and trust that i make with authenticity and passion.
you’re free to pass anything you like through image search, ai detection, to make sure it’s legit. even my wording.
thanks for reading.
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Another little practice sketch. This one was for our first Easter Special, a story about a rave at an old abandoned church.
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Art collection self-promotion attempt - Flowers!
Check out my profile for places to buy!
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Questions for You All!
Hi everyone! I have been recovering from intense, horrible pain. I have been getting better, so I’m going back to planning my crafting experiments. Would anyone here possibly be interested in handmade manatee ornaments? Would you all like to see pictures and possible links to them?
